Kai Budde (born 28 October 1979),
[Kai Budde 2005 Pro Player card (from the Magic: The Gathering ]Ravnica
''Ravnica'' is a '' Magic: The Gathering'' block that consists of three expert-level expansion sets: ''Ravnica: City of Guilds'' (October 7, 2005), ''Guildpact'' (February 3, 2006), and ''Dissension'' (May 5, 2006). Following in the traditi ...
expansion) is a semi-retired professional
Magic: The Gathering
''Magic: The Gathering'' (colloquially known as ''Magic'' or ''MTG'') is a Tabletop game, tabletop and Digital collectible card game, digital Collectible card game, collectable card game created by Richard Garfield. Released in 1993 by Wizards ...
player, who holds the record for
Pro Tour victories, and for a long time held the records for earnings and lifetime Pro Points.
His performances earned him the nicknames "The (German) Juggernaut" and "King of the Grand Prix". Kai left the game in late 2004 to focus on his studies, and his appearances in tournaments are less frequent than in earlier years. Budde is widely considered to be one of the all-time greatest Magic: The Gathering players.
He has won five individual Pro Tour titles (no other player has won more than three), and two Team Pro Tour titles (alongside fellow Germans
Marco Blume
Marco Blume is one of the most successful professional Magic: The Gathering players. He has won two Pro Tour (Magic: The Gathering), Pro Tours and one Masters as a member of team Phoenix Foundation, his teammates being Kai Budde and Dirk Babero ...
and
Dirk Baberowski). Budde also won the 1999
Magic World Championship in
Tokyo
Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...
. His cash winnings in six years of premier Magic: The Gathering tournaments are well over $300,000. He has also been awarded a record four
Player of the Year titles: 1999, 2001, 2002, and 2003.
Budde also won the 2001
Magic Invitational tournament in
Cape Town
Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...
. His prize was the rare opportunity to design an actual card; the result was Voidmage Prodigy. In 2007, Kai Budde was inducted into the Pro-Tour
Hall of Fame
A hall, wall, or walk of fame is a list of individuals, achievements, or other entities, usually chosen by a group of electors, to mark their excellence or Wiktionary:fame, fame in their field. In some cases, these halls of fame consist of actu ...
.
Career
Early years
Budde started playing Magic in 1994 when he learned about the game from fellow gamers. As a player from
Cologne
Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 m ...
he quickly became acquainted with more experienced players from the city such as later Pro Tour winner Frank Adler. His rise to professional play coincided with that of
Dirk Baberowski, another Magic player who had moved to Cologne. Being at a comparable level of playing, both worked together to qualify for the Pro Tour. Budde succeeded on his second attempt, thus qualifying for the
1997 Pro Tour New York. As he had not yet turned eighteen Kai chose to attend the Junior Division of the tournament, eventually finishing among the best 32. Afterwards, the Junior Pro Tour was discontinued and Budde was automatically qualified for the following Pro Tour in
Mainz
Mainz () is the capital and largest city of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.
Mainz is on the left bank of the Rhine, opposite to the place that the Main (river), Main joins the Rhine. Downstream of the confluence, the Rhine flows to the north-we ...
.
Kai finished 52nd in Mainz and for a while struggled to qualify for another Pro Tour but eventually managed to qualify for the
1998 Pro Tour Chicago. Fellow player and now friend Baberowski had finally managed to qualify for the Pro Tour, too. While Kai finished 19th Baberowski won the whole tournament. After a second place at Grand Prix Birmingham Budde added three Grand Prix titles within six months. The third one in Amsterdam even came by defeating Baberowski in the finals. With these finishes Budde had racked up enough Pro Points to be in contention for the Pro Player of the Year title in the final event of the
1998–99 season. Having not made a Pro Tour Top 8 appearance yet the leader in the Pro Player of the Year race did not consider him to be a threat, though. When Budde advanced to the final of the
1999 World Championship in
Tokyo
Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...
he had already secured the
Pro Player of the year race.
He added the World Champion title by defeating Mark Le Pine in one of the quickest Pro Tour finals ever.
After adding an 11th-place finish at the next Pro Tour in London the rest of the
1999–2000 season turned out to be disappointing. He was not able to make it beyond the first round in any of the newly introduced
Masters events nor did he finish better than Top 64 at any of the succeeding Pro Tours.
Five Pro Tour titles in two years
It took Kai until November 2000 to make another final eight appearance. A third place at Grand Prix Florence was followed by his second Pro Tour win. The 2000 Pro Tour Chicago title made him the third player to win more than one Pro Tour, the other two being
Jon Finkel
Jon Finkel (born May 18, 1978)Jon Finkel 2006 Pro Player card (from the Magic: The Gathering Time Spiral expansion) is an American ''Magic: The Gathering'' and poker player. Finkel is one of the most decorated players in the history of professio ...
and
Tommi Hovi
Tommi Hovi (born 5 January 1980) is a former professional Magic: The Gathering player from Finland. He was inducted into the Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour Hall of Fame in the inaugural class in 2005. Hovi was also the first player to win two Pr ...
. Winning Pro Tour Barcelona in the same season, Kai managed to surpass Finkel and Hovi to become the first player to win three Pro Tours. In the semi-final at Barcelona Budde had even asked if he could concede to his friend Patrick Mello to make him eligible for the next Masters, but the officials had refused.
Finally a 44th-place finish at the World Championship in Toronto sufficed to make Kai the first double Pro Player of the Year.
The
2001–02 season started very well for Kai Budde with consecutive wins at Grand Prix London and Pro Tour New York. For the Team Pro Tour New York Kai had chosen his friends Dirk Baberowski and
Marco Blume
Marco Blume is one of the most successful professional Magic: The Gathering players. He has won two Pro Tour (Magic: The Gathering), Pro Tours and one Masters as a member of team Phoenix Foundation, his teammates being Kai Budde and Dirk Babero ...
, despite being able to play with virtually anybody he would have liked. Dirk had retired from the game for some time, but Kai managed to convince him to come along for the Pro Tour. Team "Phoenix Foundation" as they called themselves went on to become the most successful team in the Pro Tour history. Pro Tour New York is also the origin of the saying "Kai doesn't lose on Sunday". Several Pro Players had answered something to that extent when asked who their favorite amongst the final four teams was. Less than two months later Kai added another Pro Tour title, this time in New Orleans. He is still the only player in the game to have won back to back Pro Tours. In between, Budde had also won the
Invitational which gave him the chance to create a Magic card of his own design. The card eventually became .
Throughout the season a few more Grand Prix titles followed and eventually he managed another Top 8 appearance at Pro Tour Nice, this time losing in the quarter-final to Bram Snepvangers. Before the final event of the season, the World Championship in Sydney, Kai was already locked in to succeed himself as Pro Tour Player of the Year. Only a week after Nice, Budde won the
German Nationals, securing another title he had not won before and thus making the national team. While he finished 44th individually at the World Championship, Kai led the German team with Felix Schneiders, a fellow player from his Cologne days, and Mark Ziegner to the team title.
Phoenix Foundation won the first Pro Tour of the
2002–03 season, giving Kai an early lead in the Pro Player of the Year race. Also this set the three Phoenix Foundation members in the top three spots in lifetime Pro Tour wins until
Jon Finkel
Jon Finkel (born May 18, 1978)Jon Finkel 2006 Pro Player card (from the Magic: The Gathering Time Spiral expansion) is an American ''Magic: The Gathering'' and poker player. Finkel is one of the most decorated players in the history of professio ...
overtook Blume with his victory in Kuala Lumpur five years later. After a few mediocre finishes through mid-season Kai won his seventh Pro Tour in Chicago, beating some of the most accomplished players such as Jon Finkel, William Jensen, and Nicolai Herzog along the way. Despite making no further Top 8 appearances in the season Kai was able to take his fourth Pro Player of the Year title with a comfortable lead.
Decline
In
2003–04 Phoenix Foundation managed to open with another top 4 appearance, but lost in the semi-final to the eventual winners. Kai managed to make a few more Top 8 appearance at Grand Prixs, among those a victory at the then biggest Magic tournament ever at Madrid, but his performances declined notably. He managed an undefeated first day at
Pro Tour Philadelphia in the following season, but was quickly eliminated from the event afterwards. Budde has since been considered to be retired from Pro Play although he has shown up for a Pro Tour from time to time. Eventually he was inducted into the
Hall of Fame
A hall, wall, or walk of fame is a list of individuals, achievements, or other entities, usually chosen by a group of electors, to mark their excellence or Wiktionary:fame, fame in their field. In some cases, these halls of fame consist of actu ...
at the
2007 World Championship in
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
. Over the next years he played on the Pro Tour occasionally, but without much success. However, in
2010
File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...
Budde made his tenth Pro Tour top 8 in
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...
, and in
2011
File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrate ...
he made his fifteenth Grand Prix top 8 in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
. Since
Pro Tour ''Return to Ravnica'' Budde has been a part of the team currently called 'The Pantheon', alongside players such as
Jon Finkel
Jon Finkel (born May 18, 1978)Jon Finkel 2006 Pro Player card (from the Magic: The Gathering Time Spiral expansion) is an American ''Magic: The Gathering'' and poker player. Finkel is one of the most decorated players in the history of professio ...
,
William Jensen
William "Huey" Jensen (born July 26, 1982) is an American ''Magic: The Gathering'' player. He won Pro Tour Boston 2003, and has finished in the top 8 of four additional Pro Tours. He also has 24 Grand Prix top eights, including six wins. Jensen ...
, and
Gabriel Nassif
Gabriel Nassif (born 8 November 1983)Gabriel Nassif 2007 Pro Player card (from the Magic: The Gathering Lorwyn expansion) is a French professional card player. He is known for his continuous success on the Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour and was t ...
.
In 2019, he made the Top4 of the Mythic Championship III, a rebranded version of the Pro Tour, which was entirely played on Magic Arena.
Top 8 appearances
Other accomplishments
* Pro Player of the Year 1998–1999
* Pro Player of the Year 2000–2001
* Pro Player of the Year 2001–2002
* Pro Player of the Year 2002–2003
*
Magic Hall of Fame class of 2007 vote leader
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Budde, Kai
German Magic: The Gathering players
Living people
1979 births
Sportspeople from Cologne
Sportspeople from Hamburg
Players who have won the Magic: The Gathering World Championship